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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

POPLARVILLE - The art work of a Picayune woman is on display at Pearl River Community College through April 3. The French Connection exhibit of paintings and photography by Sandra Bowering Booker is in the Moody Hall Gallery and is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Much of the work is the result of an October 2013 trip to Paris to study with Starkville native Paul Jackson, known as The Wandering Watercolorist. Booker spent what she called 37 “interesting” years as a certified quality, environmental, safety and health professional in services, general industry, military, aerospace, government and defense contracts. She interrupted her work life to earn an associate’s degree from PRCC in 1992 followed by the bachelor of business administration from the University of Southern Mississippi and the MBA from William Carey University. She returned to PRCC several years ago to fulfill a life-long dream to study art but was called back to work at Kings Bay Nuclear Submarine Base in Georgia, delaying her studies.

Booker discovered Jackson’s work at the Meridian Museum of Art and participated in workshops in Meridian and Baton Rouge before traveling to France. She and seven other students spent time in the French Provence regions and Paris to tour, sketch, paint and photograph. “While the France workshop tour inspired many of the watercolor studies exhibited, many traditional works are based on local experiences,” she said. The exhibit includes a watercolor of Bay Street Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg where Booker was raised. She is continuing her studies at PRCC with art instructor Charleen Null. “She’s been a student here for a good while, and is quite talented,” Null said. “After she got to go on the fantastic trip, I suggested she do a show from the photography and paintings.”(PRCC will be closed for spring break the week of March 10 and will reopen March 17.)

:Sandra Bowering Booker of Picayune displays some of the watercolors she has on exhibt at Pearl River Community College.